by R. E. Butler
“You first,” Eryx said with a shove to his shoulder and Ethan scanned the flashlight back and forth in front of him as he picked his way down the slick snow covered hill. He’d grabbed their medical kit, but had no real illusions that the human or humans inside the car were alive. As the car came into view, it was clear it had rolled. The windows were shattered, the light from his Magnum picking up the broken pieces like diamonds on the snow.
“Fuck me.” Eryx said quietly. He agreed completely. The closer they drew to the car, fighting through several feet of snow at the bottom of the hillside, the more edgy he felt, as if there were something horribly wrong about the whole scenario. Not just the potential loss of life, but another thing entirely.
Sleet whipped inside the car from the broken windows, and the blood covered head of the poor human was slumped to the side. He could see the lightly tanned skin of the human’s neck, striped with blood. Delicate and small, it was clear this was a woman. Eryx shined his light inside the car and they both reached their hands to the neck of the woman at the same time. The instant they touched her skin, a sizzle of warmth shot through him and he looked at his brother and saw Eryx had the same startled look.
“Eryx?” He whispered, his throat suddenly dry.
“I feel it, too. Tell me she’s alive, Ethan. Please.” Eryx made room for Ethan’s EMT expertise, and he pressed his fingers into the side of her neck for her pulse and found it surprisingly strong.
“She’s alive.” He assured his brother, and Eryx let out a breath he’d been holding and clicked the radio on his collar, barking for the ETA on the rescue. The crackle of the night operator’s voice over the radio sounded harsh in the quiet stillness of the valley, “10 minutes, boys.”
Ethan smoothed the hair gently from the side of her face that was resting on her right shoulder. A gash just above her hairline over her left ear must have happened when she hit her head on the door, and leaning inside, he could see a cut on her forehead that was bruising quickly but had stopped bleeding, probably from the steering wheel.
“Can we, should we get her out?” Eryx asked, shifting nervously on his feet.
Ethan tested the door after unlocking it and it was damaged enough it wouldn’t budge without considerable force. “If we force the door open, we might hurt her more. It’s best to wait for the squad.”
“So we do nothing while our mate lays there bleeding?” Eryx growled and Ethan felt the same raw protectiveness for this stranger who was immediately imbedded in his heart.
He began to unbutton his coat. “Not nothing, we can at least keep her warm. Give me your coat.”
They didn’t really need the coats. Cats ran warmer than humans, so giving her the wool coats they were both wearing didn’t hurt them any, and they’d both risk frostbite for their mate anyway.
Mate. He let the word roll around in his mind, loving the way it sounded. Mountain lions didn’t have mates, but the woman in the car was theirs. He was certain of it.
They kept silent as the squad used the Jaws of Life to cut the car apart, but they were both worried. He could feel his brother’s concern because it was a mirror of his own. It took a half hour to get the door off, and he had to stop both himself and Eryx from rushing to her side. The locals knew they were lions, but they didn’t go parading around with fangs and claws. And he knew if he touched her even once more that he would never want to let her go, and she was injured enough to need medical attention. Although he desperately wanted to take care of her himself, it was in her best interest to let the professionals handle things.
**Eryx**
“If he touches her again, I’ll rip his head off,” Eryx growled under his breath as the EMT from the fire station in the next town looked over their mate on the stretcher.
“He’s supposed to touch her; he has to make sure she’s okay. Calm yourself.” Ethan whispered, but Eryx picked up the same tension in his brother’s voice that he had in his own. They were helpless, while their fragile human mate was being tended over by more humans, and not nearly fast enough in his opinion.
“Hey! Get her in the squad already!” He said loudly, and EMT Edward Batten looked up and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t tell you how to do your job, Fallon, you don’t tell me either.”
Ethan put a restraining hand on his shoulder but it did nothing to ease the fear that was lodged deep in his belly. They’d both agreed that the odd feelings they’d had over the last few days were clearly because of this woman. According to her ID, which he’d confiscated along with her purse from the floor of the front seat, she was 24-year-old Calliope Marie Hunter from Allen, Kentucky, wherever the hell that was. What she was doing in King he didn’t know, and he didn’t care. She was here, she was theirs, and that was all there was to it. The crew was working by floodlights and when they’d pulled her out of the car with a neck brace on, they’d both sucked in a breath at her beautiful face. Her hair was honey brown, what wasn’t covered in dried blood anyway, and she had the lushest mouth he’d ever seen, even with her lips cut and bruised.
Positively aching to hold her and take care of her, it had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed to let the EMTs do their jobs. It was a great relief to see the ambulance take off for the nearest hospital, which was 27 minutes away.
“Boys?” Their father spoke from behind them and they both turned in unison.
The story spilled from their lips in hushed voices and he nodded, finally. “That does explain your feelings; it’s not abnormal for supernaturals to get a sixth sense about mates. For our kind, the males will sometimes feel that mate connection to another female, but she’s not a lion, so I’m not sure why you’d feel that way about her. You know what will happen if you keep her. You risk her life. Again.”
Without missing a beat, Ethan said what Eryx was going to say, “We’ll go, then. Wherever she wants.”
“You’d walk from the pride?” Their father asked in surprise.
“You would have, if our mother wanted you to.” Eryx said, feeling in the depths of his soul more connected to that sweet girl in the back of the ambulance than he’d ever felt connected to anyone outside of his family before.
“True.” Their father sighed. “You have to be careful not to freak her out. She may not have any idea what it means to be a mate, and that both of you believe her to be yours together, may prove an obstacle that will take some time to overcome. Get to the hospital. I’ll be at the station after this is all cleaned up.”
Grateful to be released, Ethan popped the trunk to see if she had any bags and grabbed the two suitcases. There was a box in the back seat but they couldn't get to it without ripping the front seat out, so they left it to be gathered later at the impound lot. Bags in tow, they lurched up the hill as fast as they could and drove to the hospital.
The nurse at the desk told them she was with the doctor, and he’d come out to talk to them when he was finished.
“Well, we talked before about what it would mean if one of us had a mate and the other didn’t. Clearly this isn’t a scenario we contemplated before.” Eryx said as they both paced the length of the empty waiting room. For their kind, the males sometimes felt a mate connection to a female, but because the female lions didn't want mates, the connection was one-sided. This was an entirely new scenario - a mate connection to a human. It gave him hope.
“It’s better this way, though. We can both keep her safe until we can leave.” Ethan said as he shifted anxiously. Eryx sighed and ran his hand through his hair, something he did when he was particularly worried or upset. His stomach was in knots and hadn’t stopped feeling like it was stuffed full of lead. He didn’t dare wonder about her fragile human body and what could have happened to her with the force of that accident. No matter what, he’d take care of her for the rest of his life, gladly.
“We could go to Indiana, to Uncle Rhett’s ranch. He could always use another pair of hands.” Ethan offered and Eryx stopped his pacing and looked at him, and then nodded. They’d need money
, and small town deputies didn’t make much.
A voice they recognized as Dr. Xavier Grace interrupted their discussion, “Were you guys waiting to hear about the Hunter girl?”
“Doc, hey.” Ethan shook his extended hand and Eryx did, too. Doc Grace was the only werewolf around these parts and a friend of the family. “Yeah, how is she?”
“Why did you even bother bringing her in?” He gave them a look as if they were idiots and Eryx had the urge to punch his teeth in.
“Because she’s injured, she lost a ton of blood, what do you mean why did we bring her in?” He sputtered at the doctor, his fear taking hold. Did that mean she had died?
The doc looked at them in confusion and then a dawning of awareness scattered through his features. “Oh, you guys don’t know? She’s perfectly fine. She woke up when they were cutting her clothes off in the ER, but they wouldn’t let her go until she was completely checked out. If you guys had known what she is you could have saved the ambulance the drive out here. She’s not human; she’s a wolf, like me.”
Ethan was the first to get his voice to work. “A wolf? Are you sure?”
“Of course. I know my own kind. She’s rogue, but definitely all wolf. She doesn’t smell like a wolf to you?”
They both shrugged and exchanged long looks. This was an interesting development. Doc Grace looked thoughtful, “Maybe because it was cold out, so her scent was masked, but she should smell like fall, like the woods. Maybe that’s just wolf to wolf, I never asked how I smell to you guys. She’s weak, and has some bruising and aches that haven’t healed yet, but the cuts are gone. You can go see her now, if you need to fill out a report or something?”
Eryx snorted, “Something like that.”
“Room 273. Good to see you both again. Tell your dad I said hello.”
They didn’t bother answering him and turned to face each other. “This is incredible,” Eryx said, breaking the silence.
“It means we can stay, though. She’ll definitely be able to handle the females.”
“But if she doesn’t want to stay here?”
Ethan shrugged. “I’m willing to do anything to make her happy, Eryx. Here, the other side of the world, wherever. If she’s rogue then that means she’s alone and she needs us.”
He hoped that was true. “Let’s go see our Calliope.”
Chapter 4
**Callie**
She didn’t even want to know how much this hospital bill was going to cost her. And where the hell was she, anyway? And who brought her here? And where was her damn purse? None of the nurses had answers for her, and once the doctor told them she was a wolf, they scattered like bunnies, and not the tasty sort. Helpful tip: when trying to blend into a town as a human, don’t get looked over by the local werewolf doctor.
She had no ID, but they somehow knew who she was. And she had no clothes, because they’d cut off her favorite pair of jeans and the rest of her stuff, and wherever the hell her car was, her two suitcases were in the trunk so she had a stupid hospital gown on and nothing to wear instead. The doctor had offered to bring her scrubs and she’d accepted, but so far, no one had brought her any. That was 20 minutes ago.
This just wasn’t how she’d planned to spend the night. Her body ached, but was thankfully healing. They’d cleaned her up in the ER and found her wounds healed. She didn’t know how long she was out for, but she didn’t remember anything after her brakes went out. Feeling sorry for herself, and wishing she could call Cadence for some commiserating, she reminded herself she was trying to stand on her own two feet and make a new life. She could get through this. She would wait for her things and then find a place to stay for the night and figure the world out after a good night’s sleep.
The door opened and in walked two of the most handsome men she’d ever laid eyes on in her entire life. She stared at them while they grinned and walked towards the bed. She put her hand up to stop them from coming further and they both froze.
“Who are you?” She demanded, gathering something like courage and closing her mouth so she didn’t look like a slack jawed idiot.
The one on the right said, “I’m Ethan Fallon, this is my twin Eryx. We’re the ones that found you, Calliope. How are you feeling?”
They wore the black uniforms and shining badges of sheriffs’ deputies. They were identical twins, except that Ethan’s eyes were darker than Eryx’s. One of them was gorgeous enough, but seeing two of them together was like trying to stare at the sun. The whole inside of her body threatened to melt. “It’s Callie, and I’m fine. You don’t happen to know where my stuff is, do you?”
“The car is at the impound lot but we grabbed your suitcases and put them in our car. What do you need?” Eryx, on the left, supplied the answer.
She made a gesture to her hospital gown. “Something not hospital issued.”
They both smiled. Geez, they were hot. She shoved her lustful thoughts aside as Ethan said, “I’ll go grab your things. The doc said you’re stuck here until they discharge and they don’t do that until after lunch, and it’s only 7:30. I’ll be back.”
He looked at his brother and some sort of twin telepathy must have passed through them because Eryx nodded and Ethan left. “Mind if I sit down?” Eryx asked as he sat in the chair next to the bed.
“I guess not.”
He laid her purse on the edge of the bed. “I grabbed it from the car when they were cutting you out of it.”
She felt her mouth fall open again. “Did you say they cut me out of my car?”
His brow furrowed, “Yes. Your car crashed through the guardrail and rolled down the embankment. If you weren’t a supe, you’d be dead for sure.”
“Supe?”
He smiled, “A supernatural creature.”
Must be a local term. Great, so wolf doc had felt the need to tell everyone in town that she was a wolf. Awesome. She closed her eyes and laid back. She so didn’t need any complications like this.
She didn’t bother looking in her purse. The only thing of value was her wallet, and she was sure that it was safe, since they knew her information. She tried not to think about the hunky man sitting next to her, watching patiently like he had all the time in the world and she was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. She tried very hard not to think about his short cut, dark brown hair and stubbled chin, the silvery gray eyes, or the curve of his mouth. She tried damn, damn hard not to wonder what he looked like peeled out of that uniform and where he kept his handcuffs. Clearly, she wasn’t doing a good job of it. Clearly.
He cleared his throat and she opened her eyes and looked at him. “Are you hungry or thirsty? I can get you something.”
She opened and closed her mouth a few times. “Why are you here?”
“Hmm?”
“I mean, Ethan went to get my things, but that doesn’t explain why you’re sitting in my room.”
“Well, Callie, you’re from out of town, you were in an accident that took out a guardrail, and your car is totaled. At the very least, we’re being hospitable.” There was something about his phrasing, the tone in his voice and the look in his eyes that said there was more going on here than typical small town hospitality. Unfortunately, she was at a disadvantage without her car.
She clamped her mouth shut and turned away from the alluring Eryx Fallon. Sexy name. Sexy man. And a twin, no less. She wondered how much they shared. Oh hell, woman, get your head out of the gutter!
She heard a very faint, very inhuman growl and her eyes flashed open as the door swung wide and an orderly came in. She looked at Eryx in surprise and thanked the orderly for the scrubs as he scurried out of the door as fast as his chunky human legs could take him. When the door shut, she said, “What the hell are you?”
He blinked and took a deep breath, like he was calming some beast and then he said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize him. My brother and I are mountain lions.”
Fan-fucking-tastic. She landed in cat central? Sure, she was trying to avoid other
wolf packs, but she wasn’t looking to go litter-box. She groaned internally and was about to tell him that she wanted him to leave so she could clean up and put the scrubs on, when the door opened and he didn’t growl, because equally yummy Ethan walked in with both of her suitcases.
She half-smiled and said, “Thank you, Ethan. Now both of you, out.”
“What’s wrong?” He looked pointedly at Eryx.
Eryx looked chagrined, “I think I frightened her when I growled at an orderly. I am sorry, Callie. You can surely understand how hard it can be to control some of our natural reactions.”
“I’m not frightened. I’m glad you brought my things, and whatever, but I don’t need a babysitter, so go.”
She folded her arms and waited for the delicious men to disappear, which they did after exchanging that quiet twin looking thing again. With a sigh of relief, she got up and hauled the larger of the two suitcases up onto the bed and opened it. In the bathroom, she gasped at her reflection. She had a fading bruise on her forehead and her eyes were blood shot and had dark circles under them. Her aches were nearly gone, but she still felt like she went ten rounds. She didn’t care what the doctor said, she was cleaning up and she was out of here. Period.
Using the sink and one of those plastic throw up trays, she managed to wash the blood from her hair using a tiny bar of hospital-issued soap. Until she could get to a real shower, at least she didn’t have blood matting her hair. She cleaned her body as best as she could, and then applied enough makeup to cover the dark circles and bruises, and dressed in a sweater and jeans.
She expected an argument from the nursing staff, but they didn’t seem to want her around anymore than she wanted to be around. When she asked for someone to call her a cab, the woman behind the desk pointed her finger and Callie turned to see Eryx and Ethan apparently waiting for her.